A FARM labourer murdered and beheaded a young friend and dumped his decapitated body in a park, a court heard yesterday.

John Latus, 33, and originally from Corwen, is accused of murdering 21-year-old trainee welder Julian Sanders in May 2000.

A jury at Chester Crown Court was told that Latus used an axe to batter and behead his friend.

He then dumped the head and semi-clothed body in Cofton Park in Birmingham. They were found by a man walking his dog.

Latus, of Wroxeter, near Shrewsbury, Shropshire, denies murder.

Stephen Linehan, prosecuting, told the jury that the killing stemmed from a three-way friendship between Latus, Mr Sanders of Shrewsbury and 49-year-old Colin Foulkes.

The jury was told that Latus was convicted last year at Chester Crown Court of killing Mr Foulkes, who had taken him into his Wroxeter home as a teenager in 1985 after he fell out with his mother, Christine Artiss.

The jury was also told that Latus was convicted at the same trial of attacking Mrs Artiss with an axe but she survived because the axe came apart after the secondblow.

Mr Linehan said he was telling the jury about the previous convictions only because they were relevant to the Crown's case that Latus murdered Mr Sanders.

The court heard that Latus lived at the house with Mr Foulkes for most of his teens and 20s and believed the older man planned to leave him the property in his will.

In 1999 Mr Sanders joined the foundry where Mr Foulkes had worked for many years and they became friends.

Mr Foulkes introduced Mr Sanders to the defendant and all three became friends.

But in February 2000 Latus attacked Mr Sanders and caused serious head wounds. No complaint was made at the time but after Mr Sanders's death, Latus was convicted of wounding with intent to cause serious injury.

Mr Linehan said the wounding charge was being mentioned to the jury "because it proves John Latus must have harboured deep feelings ofanimosity towards Julian Sanders".

Latus was investigated by police over the murder of Mr Sanders but insufficient evidence was found to link him to the crime at the time, the court was told.

But prosecutors now claim tyre tracks left near Mr Sanders's body in Cofton Park could have been made byLatus's car.

A year after Mr Sanders died, in May 2001, Latus bludgeoned Mr Foulkes to death at the home they shared in Wroxeter.

He then drove to Corwen, where he attacked his mother Christina Artiss with an axe.

She sustained serious head injuries but escaped death after the blade came away from the handle.